In numerous practical cases, it is desired to use a network of sensors with digital outputs to acquire various parameters of one or more targets to be analyzed. These sensors can, for example, be pressure sensors, temperature sensors, luminous intensity sensors and/or distance sensors.
A time-of-flight, or TOF, sensor is an example of a distance sensor. This sensor comprises a light source emitting light towards a target point, the distance of which from the sensor must be determined. The sensor receives the light returned by the target point. The time-of-flight measurement, i.e., the time taken by the light to cover the distance from the light source to the target point, and, on the return path, from that point to the sensor, enables the distance separating the sensor from the target point to be calculated.
FIG. 1 represents a set of four boards 10, each board 10 comprising a sensor 12 and a control processor 14. The four boards 10 are connected by a parallel link to the same processor 16 suitable for controlling the boards 10 and for programming the processors 14 via connections 18 operating, for example, according to a Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter (UART) protocol.
The processor 16 sends, over the connections 18, commands or programming codes to the boards 10 and receives measurement data from the various sensors 12.
In practice, the connections corresponding to the connections 18 do not allow all the sensors to be driven by the processor of one of the sensors.